Tesla sacrifices to stay ahead of rivals in EV race
Tesla sacrifices to stay ahead of rivals in EV race
Electric vehicle maker Tesla will report its third-quarter results Wednesday. Investors will, among other things, be keeping an eye out for the effects of price cuts. The company has slashed prices by thousands of dollars per vehicle in the past year.
That’s put other car companies in a tough position as more of them seek to compete in the EV market.
For about a year, Tesla’s sales strategy has boiled down to: Sell more cars for less money. Thanks to a prolonged period of high profit margins, the company could afford it, said Seth Weintraub, publisher of EV news site Electrek.
“They’re really just blowing out their market share,” he said. “Not letting others kind of compete in their space.”
But others are trying, including Ford, General Motors, Toyota and lots of other traditional automakers. All of those competitors have cut into Tesla’s piece of the EV pie in the U.S., said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.
“We see over 100 automakers going after electric vehicles. [Tesla will] lose some market share, but they continue to be the clear leader,” he said.
According to a report by Cox Automotive last week, Tesla’s share of the nation’s EV market fell to 50% in the third quarter. That’s its lowest level on record, but the company still has a lot of weight to throw around.
When it cut prices, it put other companies in a bind, said Seth Goldstein, an equity strategist at Morningstar. Rivals are being pressured to lower their costs while also reducing prices to spur demand.
That’s a tall order for traditional carmakers, whose EVs — unlike Tesla’s — are not profitable.
The company has figured out ways to lock in revenue streams from its customers well after their initial purchase, Goldstein said.
“Things like charging, things like the full self-driving subscription software. And in a growing number of U.S. states, Tesla’s also offering insurance,” he said.
It’s also offering Elon Musk, the company’s politically outspoken CEO. Seth Weintraub of Electrek said that could turn out to be a big problem.
“Those folks that I know on the left that would possibly be Tesla owners have told me quite a bit that they don’t want to buy a Tesla because of Elon,” he said.
But, Weintraub said, if a Tesla is $10,000 cheaper than the competition, principle might have to ride in the back seat.
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